Sydney man Hamdi Alqudsi guilty of recruiting young men to fight in Syria

A NSW Supreme Court jury has found Sydney man Hamdi Alqudsi guilty of recruiting young men to fight in Syria.

Alqudsi, 42, faced seven counts of providing services with the intention of supporting hostile acts in Syria between June and October 2013.

Today, after six hours of jury deliberations, he was found guilty of assisting the passage of six Jihadis to Syria. The jury are still deciding the verdict of a seventh individual.

Alqudsi, who faces a maximum sentence of 10 years for each charge, had pleaded not guilty to all seven counts.

Two of the men he recruited to wage jihad, Tyler Casey and Caner Temel, were killed in Syria.

His two-week Supreme Court trial heard a large volume of intercepted calls in which he talks to the alleged recruits and other men in the war-torn country about flights, travel routes, the honours of martyrdom and the "mujahideen".

The court heard numerous discussions between him and well-known Australian commander Mohammad Ali Baryalei, including one in which the jihadist talks about changing allegiances to The (Islamic) State.

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Alqudsi's defence barrister, Scott Corish, has suggested his client could have thought the men were going to Syria for humanitarian reasons, and questioned whether discussing money exchanges and accommodation was providing a service.

In a transcript of one conversation, conducted over social media, the court heard how Alqudsi had cancelled his plans to travel to Syria after he learned toilet paper was not available.

"Tell me how you eat, shower, toiletry please just give me an idea??", Alqudsi asked two of his recruits in Syria.

In another eye-opening intercepted communique heard by the court, Australian jihadi Baryalei, who has also since been killed, sobbed on the phone to Alqudsi that he was "over" fighting for ISIS and desperate to come home.

Two men recruited by Alqudsi, Muhammed Abdul-Karim Musleh (also known as Abu Hassan) and Mehmet Biber, have since returned to Australia.

Australian government agencies are uncertain as to the fate of Alqudsi's two other recruits.